On patience and the burden of waiting: ‘Water cuts’ and local experiences in Makhanda, South Africa
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Can people wait patiently without hope? The question remains partially interrogated in the growing literature on the experience and politics of waiting and the character of social agency among the poor in the Global South. The paper interrogates this question, drawing on a detailed case study on residents’ subjective experiences of waiting for state provision of water service, in the context of a mounting water crisis in Makhanda, South Africa. The town of Makhanda has been experiencing frequent water cuts for several years. Our analysis of local narratives on the experience of time – waiting – among the poor in the margins of Makhanda demonstrates that patience may not always exist purely as a valorised virtue among social agents, nor does its existence rely on high levels of hope. Patience can be a collective disposition conjured up to cope with the painful experience of time – the burden of waiting – especially in contexts characterised by prolonged crisis and uncertainty. This form of patience, which we categorise as patience of necessity, is a compulsive form of patience produced by the inability of the urban poor to escape a water crisis and their limited access to resources of impatient waiting. Subsequently, the urban poor not only have to carry the social and physical burden of waiting, they are locked in a perpetual patience, acted upon as waiting. With diminished hope for immediate relief, this form of collective patience renders waiting possible, if not tolerable, in the context of prolonged uncertainty produced by constant water cuts.
Source: Critical African Studies
Authors: Sonwabile Mnwana, Babalwa Sishuta
Institutions: Rhodes University, University of Edinburgh
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4411962093